


99.607% Match Compatibility

by ionizable



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, i lied there's no fluff, reasons why i need to stop browsing okcupid, shameless fluff, soulmate trope (sort of), the machine is the biggest shoot shipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionizable/pseuds/ionizable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She doesn’t wait for Root to reply, doesn’t let Root get in a word edgewise. “Because it told you that you and Hanna are supposed to end up together, but it told </em>me<em> that you and I are supposed to end up together. You were my so-called soulmate, okay? It spit </em>your<em> name out at me.”</em></p><p>The Machine is just casually being a matchmaker on the downlow again, but nothing ever really comes easily, does it?</p><p>(Soulmate trope meets what-if-the-Machine-has-a-virtual-baby-and-it's-OKCupid)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. Reese gets bitten on the shin

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS AN AU WHERE THEY'VE DEFEATED SAMARITAN AND ARE NOW LIVING (!) HAPPILY EVER AFTER, CHASING DOWN ONE NUMBER AT A TIME LIKE THE LOVABLY INEFFECTIVE ANTI-KNEECAP SUBWAY CAR DWELLERS THEY ARE
> 
> maybe M/E from chapter 5 onwards. we shall see.

“I don’t understand,” Shaw grunts as she narrowly dodges another hailstorm of bullets. “Why can’t we just, for once, ask the Machine for a printout of everything about our numbers so we don’t have to run into a mess like this blindfolded?”

“Too much for you to handle, Shaw?” Reese smiles under his breath, but it was loud enough for the comms to pick up. Shaw can just picture the smirk on Root’s face right now.

“You just wait, Reese,” Shaw growls. She glares at him over the crates of probably illegal ammunitions that she’s using as cover, before stepping out in the lull and taking out the handful of shooters with several precise shots to the knees.

He pretends he’s too busy apprehending their number, an arms dealer who’d managed to seem incredibly innocent up until he tried to kill a competitor a minute ago, to catch the glare she’s still leveling at him.

Shaw decides she’s going to let Reese deal with figuring out what to do with the slimeball. _Serves him right_ , she thinks smugly, as the arms dealer latches onto Reese’s shin with his teeth.

Humming slightly, she gets into the car and decides she’ll let Reese deal with figuring out to get home, too.

“I take it the number has been apprehended?” Harold’s voice sounds in her ear.

“More or less,” along with some panting, come in reply. Reese sounds like he’s struggling a bit.

“Made it out unscathed, Sameen?” Root’s voice joins the comms.

“Can’t say the same about John’s shin,” Shaw grins.

She can hear the exasperation in Harold’s voice without him even speaking. Resolving to cut him off before he delivers a lecture on teamwork or trust falls or something, she keeps one eye on the road while checking her ammo. “I’m running low, so I’m on my way back. Want me to pick anything up on the way?”

“I’m good, Sameen, but thank you. That was very kind of you to offer.”

“I wasn’t asking you, Root.”

 

* * *

 

 

“She has a point, Harry,” Root says after everyone’s disconnected from the comms. “Things would be so much easier if She could tell us a little more about our targets.”

Harold peers at her over one of his computer screens. “You know better than I, Ms. Groves, that that is simply not part of the Machine’s operational objectives.”

Root considers this thoughtfully, before swiveling in her chair and addressing the subway car at large. “Really? There’s nothing else you’re holding out on us that could be helpful?..."

"... I knew it! You _do_ have something for us, don't you?…"

"... Sometimes every last thing counts. Information is power, you know…"

"... Well, yes, but it’ll be far more practical for the team than just fun for me…”

Continuing to clean up all the digital traces of their latest mission, Harold tries not to notice the delighted smile that’s growing on Root’s face as it appears from the one-sided conversation that her coaxing seems to be working on the Machine. Clearing his throat, he wonders if there’s a tactful way he can suggest Root make a graceful exit from the subway car before Shaw returns. Shaw seems particularly ornery today, and Root’s mischief seems to be in surplus.

Root beats him to the punch. “Hey Harry, guess what,” she smiles.

Harold glances at her briefly, before making a point of shifting in his chair to turn away.

With her laptop in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee ( _where did that come from?_ he wonders) in the other, she walks over and settles into the chair next to his. He pretends not to notice the coffee being offered to him, hovering dangerously over his papers.

He sees her shrug out of the corner of his eye before setting the cup on the part of his desk not consumed by mission-related notes or excruciatingly disappointing term assignments. For a few minutes, they work in companionable silence, their rapid clicking and typing away and the gentle hum of his computer the only sounds in the subway car.

“Harold,” Root says after a few minutes of solid work. Her voice is carefully moderated, but he can hear the excitement simmering underneath. “Take a look at this.”

With a sigh, he turns to look at Root’s screen.

“What—”

“I know!” Root says happily.

“Why—”

“Wait, Harry, before you say anything else,” she says hurriedly, “She told me about it. So She probably means for us to make use of it somehow, right?”

He squints at the mess of code on her screen. Not for the first time, he suppresses the thought that the Machine might have a sense of humour.

“Ms. Groves,” he says after a beat, “Why am I looking at an algorithm that calculates relationship compatibility?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Did you know I hacked OKCupid once? It was for a job. Easiest half a million I ever made.”

Shaw is too busy keeping a wary eye on Root, whose chair somehow seems to have been slowly gravitating towards the bag containing her meatball sub, to register the non-sequitur at first. Once Root’s body posture shifts away from her food, Shaw pauses to consider the subject. There’s no possible outcome to this conversational topic that won’t end in her wanting to close her hands around Root’s throat, so she turns her attention back to Harold.

“I’m going to take off if there’s nothing else, then.”

“Yes, Ms. Shaw, for now we appear to be granted a moment of respite. I will make sure to call you the moment we receive another number.”

Shaw nods and makes her way back to where she’d set her sub down. Shoving her fully reloaded guns back into their holsters, she glances over Root’s shoulder to see what’s so engrossing about whatever she’s working on.

“I suppose She was able to easily combine similar algorithms with all the information She already has.”

Eyes narrowing, she briefly struggles internally before sighing and shaking her head at herself. She unwraps her sub and takes a bite, making sure to take her time and chew thoroughly, before finally asking, “Why are you talking about online dating?”

Root looks up at Shaw, bringing their faces a lot closer together than Shaw had expected. 

Glancing down at Shaw’s mouth, a small smile curves its way onto Root’s face.

“I’m not talking about online dating, Sameen. I’m talking about soulmates.”

Shaw watches Root’s gaze linger on her mouth.

She brings the sub back up to her mouth and takes a grossly large bite out of it. Around the food in her mouth, she mumbles, “That didn’t answer my question.”

Root relaxes into her chair a bit, now eyeing Shaw’s extremely full mouth with a touch of amusement as she deciphers what it was that Shaw was probably trying to say. Half of it was meatball sub. “Well, remember when you asked Her to tell us everything about a number?”

“Considering it was less than two hours ago, yeah, I’d say I remember.”

“Well, everything includes soulmates, sweetie.” Root reaches up to brush a crumb from the corner of Shaw’s mouth, but gets her hand batted away instead.

Shaw wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, then scoffs. “Soulmates don’t exist.”

Root leans back in her chair almost imperceptibly, considering Shaw silently, her lips curving without the smugness that infuses her normal smiles.

After a few seconds, during which Shaw takes another unnecessarily large bite out of her sub – if nothing else but for a reason to break her gaze from Root’s unusually thoughtful one – Root’s trademark smirk winds its way back onto her face.

“Soulmates, highest compatibility match in the local metropolitan area. Same thing,” Root says airily.

Shaw shakes her head again. Her sub is almost finished, and this conversation is just as maddening as most conversations with Root are. “I don’t want to know about a number’s lovelife. I just want to know things like who he associates with, where he lives, where he pulled a muscle last week so I can shoot that part of him first.”

“The compatibility matches are based on all of that, sweetie. We just need to find a way to examine Her algorithm and isolate the variables that were used in the calculations.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that. Try to work on that in your downtime, I’d hate to be stranded on a mission just because you were busy playing matchmaker with our numbers instead of tracking down killers.”

“What if I was busy playing matchmaker with you instead?”

Accompanied by a thunder of horror sounding in Shaw’s brain, her social security number is being typed out onto Root’s screen in the “input SSN” field. ( _Why does she know my social security number off by heart like that?_ follows the shock that’s bouncing around in her mind as well.)

“Root, I swear to God—”

“Hello?” Reese’s voice grumpily floats across the abandoned subway. “A hand would be nice here.”

“Mr. Reese! What happened?” Harold limps out of his computer chair while craning his neck to try to assess the drops of blood falling from Reese’s pant leg.

Shaw watches Root set the laptop down to check out the bite the last number had inflicted on Reese after she’d left him to wrap up the mission. With a quick glance over at the two fussing over Reese and his barely punctured skin wound ( _Baby_ , she snorts to herself), Shaw finds her gaze being drawn back to the blinking cursor at the end of the input field on Root’s laptop.

She looks back over at Root being ordered by Harold to run and get some bandages from the first aid kit at the other end of the subway car.

There’s just one number left in her social security number to type in…

With an unexpected tenseness in her muscles, Shaw punches in the last digit and hits “Enter” almost defiantly, before turning to watch Root striding back towards Reese with the first aid kit.

Satisfied that their attention is occupied elsewhere and not on the vaguely illicit behavior she feels like she’s engaging in, Shaw considers the error message returned to her by the program.

Feeling resigned to the probable result she knows she’s about to get, she enters “y” for the “return known alias instead?... y/n” prompt.

Her mouth twists wryly at the name printed out in the “highest match compatibility result…” line.

“99.607% match compatibility, huh?” she mutters to herself.

She erases the output window and clears the memory cache with the method Harold taught her a few months ago before heading over to take a look at the bite mark on Reese’s shin.


	2. II: Root does her part for the environment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story: 
> 
> root coaxed the machine into printing out highest % matches for social security number inputs, shaw snuck onto root's laptop and ran the program on herself, harold sniffed in disapproval, and reese got a bite on his shin or something.

“Root!”

Root swings abruptly upright from her prone position on Shaw’s couch, pausing to grimace from the rush of blood to her head.

“ROOT!”

“Oh,” she breathes. “What is it this time?”

_# Asset indicating distress._

“Yes, I gathered as much—”

_# Asset examining toilet._

“Root, get in here!”

“Oh…” Root says. She contemplates the amount of space underneath Shaw’s rather beat-up and saggy old couch, and whether or not she’d be able to find a way to fit in there before Shaw comes storming out of the bathroom.

 _Too late_ , she realizes when she hears characteristically angry stomping coming up behind her.

_# Asset approaching. 7 o’clock._

“Root, don’t make me drag you back in there,” Shaw growls.

Root turns around and blinks owlishly. “Hi, Sameen. What’s up?”

 _# Reevaluate strategy_.

Root’s lips quirk in amusement at Her very prudent advice, but then belatedly clocks Shaw’s growing ire at Root’s apparently cavalier attitude. She decides now would be a good time to start playing it straight, unless she wants to spend another uncomfortable night with her knees and ankles ziptied together, trapped and unable to move from Shaw’s couch.

Opting to silently trail behind Shaw to the bathroom, Root notes the rivulets of water sliding off Shaw’s hair and making their way down her clothes, causing them to cling in interesting places. She catches hints of clean, soapy body wash in the air and immediately forgets all about playing it… straight.

“Need an urgent hand in the shower, do you?” slips out before Root gets a chance to stop it.

_# Reevaluate strategy._

The next thing she knows, she’s being pinned against the bathroom door by the throat, and Shaw’s breath is furiously mingling with the shallow puffs of air escaping Root in surprise. Deciding she may have pushed it a bit, Root calms her breathing and waits.

Shaw doesn’t break eye contact, but her grip on Root’s throat just barely lessens as the distance between them decreases at an alarming rate. Root can’t tell if that’s from an actual change in the amount of physical space separating them or just the fact that Shaw’s presence always seems vaguely all-encompassing to her, but the movement of her throat as she swallows dryly causes Shaw to reflexively push even harder into her throat, before pushing away altogether.

Quietly bringing her hand up to her neck and fingering her Adam’s apple, Root watches Shaw, whose behavior doesn’t resemble her normal sort of dismissively flustered when they usually get into it like this.

Shaw seems to blink away whatever funk she was briefly in and, obviously making a conscious effort to remember why she dragged Root into the bathroom in the first place, aggressively points at the toilet.

“What the hell is that?” she says.

Root peers around Shaw’s accusing finger with mild curiosity.

“I know medical school was a long time ago for you, Sam, but I believe the term for it is urine.”

“I know _that_. What the hell is it still doing in there? Are you a barbarian?”

Root grins, folding her arms before leaning against the doorway. “Quite the opposite. In fact, I’m acting on some rather revolutionary new thinking. You might've heard a similar idea already: save water, save the environm—”

“How much water are you even saving? This is disgusting, Root.”

 _# Average of 2,565 gallons per year saved_.

“What, you never learned this in elementary school? Be mellow if it’s yellow—”

“Finish that sentence and—”

“—flush it down if it’s—”

“Shut up. Just shut up,” Shaw growls.

Root shrugs. “I’m saving you money too, sweetie. Harold hasn’t increased your pay to the pre-Samaritan rate, has he?”

Shaw pauses at that.

_# Average of  $7.66 per year saved._

Root opts not to inform Shaw of the relatively measly amount of money saved and smiles tranquilly instead.

“Whatever! I don’t care. If you’re staying on my couch, Root, you had better flush.”

The bathroom door slams in Root’s face, but faint muttering can still be heard from behind the door (“ _Why the hell is that something I need to tell her to do? Who doesn’t flush someone else’s toilet? Why is she still here?_ ”) before the hairdryer starts up.

 _# Analogue interface no longer in physical jeopardy_.

“Oh, was that actually a possibility?” Root asks in surprise as she moves around Shaw’s kitchen, figuring she’d appease Shaw by making her a snack by the time she gets out of the shower.

_# Asset moods volatile over eight days. Chance of violence: likely._

“Hmm,” Root says, chewing thoughtfully on some pastrami. “What happened eight days ago?”

Root waits, but no answer appears to be forthcoming.

“Hmm,” she says again.

 

* * *

 

“99.6%  match, my ass,” Shaw grumbles under her breath as she unloads another full clip into the target. 

 _Bam bam bam bam bam bam_.

“Pain in my ass.”

 _Bam bam bam_.

“Machine wouldn’t know the difference between compatibility and my ass.”

 _Bam bam bam bam bam_.

“That’s a lot of talking about your own ass,” Reese says, then immediately puts his hands up when Shaw pivots and aims her gun at him in surprise.

“Jesus, Reese!”

“Anything on your mind, Shaw?”

“No. Get out of here.”

“Alright, okay,” he says, hands still up as he walks back to the other end of the abandoned subway. “Just thought you’d want to know, my shin is all healed up. No thanks to you!”

Shaw scowls, checks to make sure Harold and Root are still sitting in the little nerd corner Reese is headed towards, then adjusts her earmuffs.

“Dumbasses.”

_Bam bam bam bam bam bam._

 

* * *

 

“How’s our favourite little grump doing?”

“Still trying to bring targets back to life with her bullets so she can shoot them dead again.”

“You’re always quite poetic for a troglodyte.”

“Be civil, Ms. Groves,” Harold interjects distractedly, focused on the work he's doing on Root's laptop.

Reese nods once in agreement. “Surprising, but I know what a troglodyte is, Root.”

“I’m happy for you, John,” Root smiles.

Harold exhales loudly, looking between the two of them in exasperation. “Must you both sit so close to me? I am trying to work.”

“On what? We don’t have a number.”

Simultaneously, both Root’s and Reese’s eyes narrow as an unusually cagey expression makes its way onto Harold’s face.

“What are you working on, Harry?”

“Let’s have a look, here.”

“You know, that _is_ my laptop.”

“What is it, Harold?”

“Enough!” Harold says irritably as he half-stands up out of his chair to try to keep the laptop away from them. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business what I—”

He sits back down after Root nimbly plucks her laptop right out of his hands and sighs.

“Oh, Harold,” Root coos in delight.

“What is it, Root?” Reese asks.

“Guess who was looking at the matching algorithm from last week?”

Reese blows out a surprised breath. “Really? Was that only last week?”

Root arches her brow. “Aren’t you missing the point here?”

Reese shrugs. “I’m just saying, we’ve completed a lot of missions in between now and then. It feels like it was a month ago that I almost got rabies.”

“Oh, you were never in danger of getting rabies, John. Herpes, maybe,” Root says, somewhat affectionately. “Or syphilis. Ooh, or tetanus. Take your pick. Did we screen you for all those possibilities?”

“Shaw said she did a comprehensive test…” Reese says doubtfully.

Harold remains quietly in his chair, praying for another number to come up before their idle prattle turns back to the laptop—

“I’ll just threaten to bite her and see if she panics. I’m probably okay,” Reese decides. “What was Harold working on?”

Root positively giggles. “He wasn’t really working. He typed in Grace’s social security number to see if his number would come up as a match.”

“Did it?” Reese asks curiously.

Root shrugs. “It didn’t go through yet. Harry didn’t have Her telling him where to find the program.”

Her finger hovers over the enter key.

Harold clears his throat. “In the interest of respecting Grace’s privacy—”

“Oh, please, Harold,” Root laughs, “Grace probably wouldn’t have wanted you typing in her number in the first place.”

“She has a point there, Harold. What if it’d told you she was more compatible with someone else? Why would—” Suddenly, Reese snaps his fingers, and something as close to what can be described as a gleeful expression for John Reese positively infuses him. “So that’s what she was muttering about!”

Root narrows her eyes. “Who? Shaw? Shaw put in her number and found her soulmate?”

Reese just smirks knowingly at her.

Frowning, Root makes to input some numbers into the program, but her hand gets clamped down on by Harold’s.

“Now, Ms. Groves, entering Grace’s number was questionable at best for me, but if you were to run your own teammate’s number without her consent…”

The cursor blinks at Root, and she stares hard at it.

“Oh, alright,” she sighs. “Maybe I’ll be able to sleep hypnotize her into telling me who she got.”

Harold shakes his head, opting not to dignify her comment with a response, and gets up, packing his things. “Goodnight, Ms. Groves. Mr. Reese. Goodnight, Ms. Shaw!”

“Goodnight, Harold.”

“Night, Harry.”

They watch him hurry out of the subway car, presumably before he can get any more involved in this than he already is. Shaw pauses her examination of her guns to shoot them a suspicious look after he’s limped away, then sets her cleaning instruments down and resumes target practice.

“You know, you could put your own number in there, Root. That’s probably okay.”

The tip of Root’s tongue pokes out a bit as she considers this.

“What do you think?” she turns and addresses the empty room. “Should I use your algorithm for myself?”

 _# Compiled with 0 errors, 1 warning, program ready to run_.

“Hmm,” she says. Taking a minute, she closes her eyes and tries to recall her social security number. The last time she used her social security number, she’d been Samantha Groves, and her mother had just passed away.

“What’s my old social security number? From back when I was Sam?”

She waits, but the Machine declines to answer.

Frowning again, Root considers repeating her question, but then recalls the partially filled out foster care form handed to her after her mother’s funeral. A split second before she’d decided to disappear. When she’d briefly entertained the idea of trying to be part of a normal family.

 _Bam bam_.

The numbers appear on screen as she enters them in, slowed by fingers unfamiliar to them and the weight of an entire identity she’d shed a long time ago.

She hits enter.

Reese leans forward to read the SSN output for highest match compatibility result.

“Whose… number is that?”

Root stares at the screen.

“A stranger’s.”

_Bam bam bam._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. III: Shaw's Netflix queue includes a documentary about online dating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story:
> 
> root had been crashing on shaw's couch lately, shaw failed to appreciate root's philosophies on water conservation, harold sort of almost stalked his ex-fiancee, and reese was just tickled pink that shaw's match appeared to be root but root's match didn't appear to be shaw.

It isn’t until her nails make a small _clink_ against the bottom of the bowl that Shaw notices that she’s managed to finish another bag of chips without even realizing it. She stares accusingly, as if it’s the bowl’s fault for being empty, then quickly runs through some options in her mind.

Option one: she could get up and go take a quick 26-mile run in penance for those three entire family-sized bags of kettle chips she just ran through in the span of… just as many hours?

 _Where the hell did the time go?_ she wonders. She could have sworn she’d only just sat down and started up her Netflix queue.

She pauses _Unhung Hero_ (the majority of which she can’t remember, having checked out sometime after the novelty of a man being obsessed with his penis passed about three minutes into the documentary) and scrolls through her recently viewed list.

Somehow she doesn’t remember much about the last documentary – _Orgasm Inc._ – or the one before that, which is strange. She knows she’s been sitting on the couch and staring at the TV this entire time. And she’d been looking forward to finding the time to get to these.

So, option two: she could just keep sitting here, skip _Unhung Hero_ and move on to the next item in her queue, which is… _When Strangers Click_ , an exploration of the ups and downs of the world of online dating.

Shaw frowns. She doesn’t remember adding this to the queue, but she has a strong suspicion she knows who did.

Her thoughts stray back to the likely culprit, despite her resolution halfway through _A Girl and A Gun_ to stop wondering why Root’s head hasn’t popped in uninvited through her doorway at all over the past week, which it normally does if they haven’t seen each other because of a lack of numbers.

Or why she hadn’t shown up for the one mission they’d had before the dry spell started.

Or why she hasn’t even so much as called to say “hi, sweetie.”

Not that Shaw particularly misses any of that. It’s just very odd and unusual.

Shaw’s not worried.

Which leads her to option three: she could get up and go make herself a nice, healthy pork chop, and if her keys happen to be sitting on the counter on top of the utensil drawer she’d need to go get a fork from then she’s only going to go visit the abandoned subway because it was on the way.

 

* * *

 

 

“This radio silence is giving me flashbacks of a darker time, you know.”

Although mild in tone, the edges of Root’s voice are frayed with a small amount of nerves.

As has been Her tendency over the past few days, the Machine remains silent.

Root would like to be able to blame the nerves on the fact that She hasn’t been any help at all in this latest endeavour, but can accede to the fact that she’s flattening herself against the wall and perched on a ledge six stories up potentially having something to do with it.

That, or the fact that Alec Parker, her 90.878% match, has proven startlingly difficult for Root to track down.

She doesn’t want to admit it, but maybe she’s gone a bit soft since getting used to the Machine supplying her with all the preliminary information. It’s been so long since she’s had to do all the grunt work herself, Root didn’t expect that it would take her a while to remember how to build a virtual skeleton key to access basic surveillance feeds.

And now she’s literally on the cusp of finally getting a glimpse of her match’s face. Which, Root will freely admit, is where a fair amount of her concerns are stemming from. Not solely motivated by shallowness, but… Well, she’d like to think the Machine knows enough about her taste in romantic partners that her 90.878% match would be at least physically attractive to her, but short of Alec Parker being a doppelganger for Sameen Shaw…

And, well, there is that too. That may be where most of her nerves are actually stemming from.

Perhaps Root’s also taken this long to get here, standing – or holding on for dear life – outside Alec’s apartment, because a part of her doesn’t understand how there could possibly be someone out there better suited for her than Shaw.

 _Who is he?_ keeps rattling around inside her, along with something that remains unspoken even in  her thoughts – _what if he could hold the potential to ruin her life more than anyone else she’d ever met_ – and the unending silence on Her end isn’t helping her sort through this muddle at all.

The sound of a door closing from within the apartment stops the train of thought that’s starting to make Root feel as unbalanced as the 4-inch ledge she’s standing on.

Tentatively pulling the screen mesh out and poking her head through the window to check if the apartment is now empty, Root scans the apartment quickly, before tossing the screen through and clambering in after it. Brushing the brick dust off of her favourite black pants, she looks around and assesses the apartment.

Clean.

Nicely furnished.

Organized.

All in all, fairly bland.

It lacks the personality – stark, but present – that Shaw’s apartment has.

Not that she’s specifically comparing Alec to Sameen.

This is an initial recon mission, after all. She’s just making a note about the interior design. Even the abandoned subway car has its own special type of… panache, but this place feels almost sterile in an almost-but-not-quite warm or inhabited way.

 _# Analogue interface in physical jeopardy. 6 o’clock_.

Startled more by the return of the Machine in her ear than anything else, Root ducks on instinct and teeters into a bookcase with a soft _oof_ when her foot, half asleep from being twisted into an awkward position on the ledge outside, catches on the rug.

_# Connecting with primary assets._

_# Communications activated._

A whoosh of air ruffles her curls as a large, broad object is swung through the physical space she was formerly inhabiting.

“Ms. Groves? Are you alright?”

“Can’t talk right now, Harold.”

“Ms. Groves, I wasn’t the one who activated the comms link—”

“Not now, Harold,” Root says tersely.

Pivoting, she reaches for her holsters – _Sameen would be proud, I remembered to bring my guns_ races through her mind – only to be met with a wide, brown-eyed stare and a shocked ‘O’ formed by a decidedly feminine mouth.

Root freezes.

The ‘O’ slowly closes, and those large brown eyes blink in confusion under furrowed eyebrows.

“Sam? Samantha Groves?”

Mouth suddenly dry and face feeling like all her blood is rushing straight to it, Root suddenly misses the breeze she was getting when she was clinging off the side of a multistory building.

“You’re… you’re not…”

Root still can’t bring herself to move, even though every muscle in her body is clamouring for her to embrace flight, because she’s fighting to reconcile everything she thought she knew with the person standing in front of her right now.

“…Hanna?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, my,” Harold says.

Reese looks down from the new panel of lights he’s installing in the subway car, sensing something interesting brewing. “What is it?”

Harold looks up at Reese, jaw slack with shock. He holds up his hand, effectively shushing Reese, continuing to appear riveted by whatever he’s listening closely to.

Reese drops his tools unceremoniously and strides over, picking up an earpiece and settling it in his ear.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Eyebrows raised at Root’s shaky voice, Reese starts to ask a question about who she’s talking to, but is cut off by an impatient hand again. He looks around and sees some blank paper on Harold’s desk.

“I… was looking for Alec Parker.”

Reese’s eyebrows shoot up even further at the mention of Root’s 91% match, or whatever the number was.

 _Can she hear us?_ he scrawls on the back of the sheet he grabbed.

Harold’s face screws up with some antsiness from being taken away from the one-sided conversation they’re listening to. “No, I muted our communications,” he says impatiently. “And those were papers I was supposed to be grading.”

“So just accidentally lose this one then. It’ll be like you’re a real professor.”

Harold spares a quick, unamused look at Reese, before Root’s next words bring their bickering to an abrupt halt.

“Hanna – Alec – whoever you are – just stop. Don’t! Don’t – don’t come any closer. I – … I need a second.”

They look at each other worriedly. Reese begins glancing around and making a list of required firepower, ammunitions, maybe some supplies from a first kit?

“I just… give me a second, okay? Hanna, I – Alec – yes, okay. Tap water is fine.”

Harold exhales.

“I think,” he says carefully, “We should leave her to her privacy now that she seems not to be in any sort of immediate danger.”

“Not in danger? Hanna? As in Hanna Frey? She’s with a dead girl!”

Harold decisively severs the connection. “Well, she connected us in the beginning of what sounded like an unexpected struggle. I’m sure Ms. Groves knows how to contact us again if she’s in need of actual assistance.”

Reese sits down heavily on the subway seat, shaking his head. “This is… one unexpected thing after another.”

Harold stops and turns around in his chair. “What do you know about this situation, Mr. Reese?”

Eyeing him warily, Reese hesitates.

“Mr. Reese, if a series of unusual events have been taking place, we as Ms. Groves’ teammates ought to be apprised of any potential harm that may befall her.”

With a loud sigh, Reese gives one short nod. “You remember a few days ago? When you were fiddling with the Machine’s soulmate finder?”

Pursing his lips, Harold allows a terse, “Yes, and?” to prompt Reese to continue his story.

“After you scolded us and left, Root ran it on herself and got a social security number for an Alec Parker. It was a ridiculously high percentage match, too. 91% or something. So she’s been… looking for him. And now I guess he’s actually Hanna Frey.”

“Far be it from me to say ‘I told you so,’ but in this scenario it certainly seems apt,” Harold sighs.

“I don’t recall you saying ‘I told you so’ when you were thinking about using it to spy on Grace,” Reese says amusedly.

Harold sniffs. “I didn’t actually run it, Mr. Reese.”

“Sure, Finch.”

“Running programs like this always leads to trouble. I can only imagine what the Machine had in mind when it made Ms. Groves aware of its existence.”

“Doesn’t seem like Shaw’s gotten up to much trouble.” Reese pauses. “Or more trouble, anyway.”

“No? You haven’t noticed her wildly volatile state in the past few weeks?”

“Now that you mention it,” Reese says thoughtfully, “Shaw’s appetite does seem larger. For violence and food.”

“If Ms. Shaw isn’t busying herself by using an unnecessary amount of brute force on our recent missions, she’s packing away even more food than I could ever have imagined her metabolism could keep up with.”

“Maybe she’s working it off with the extra violence.”

“Be that as it may, with Ms. Groves now handling her Hanna Frey situation, and Ms. Shaw’s erratic behavior no doubt stemming from some unexamined emotional turmoil, we can only hope that we continue to not receive any numbers for some t—”

Bear’s content little noises, the ones that are prompted by only one member of their team, startle Harold into breaking off his chain of thought. Happy dog whimpers drift over from about three feet away.

Identical guilty looks adorn Reese and Harold’s faces as they turn to see Shaw burying her face in Bear’s neck. She looks up at them after a moment, expression unreadable.

“Hello, boys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hi, did i neglect to mention earlier that this is also an au where hanna is alive?
> 
> because she is
> 
> surprise!!!


	4. IV: Reese just wants to be Shaw's confidant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story: shaw was looking for pork chops not root and that's why she went to the subway ok harold?, root's soulmate is apparently actually hanna, and reese's superpower appears to be gossipping

Root gets up from the couch for the second time and walks back to the kitchen to refill her glass of water. Sipping it slowly, she re-enters the living room and perches back on the edge of the couch.

At the beginning, she’d had a hard time tearing her eyes away from Hanna, scared that if she looked away for just a moment, the ground would shift dramatically beneath her feet again and it’d all disappear.

But now she’s having trouble meeting Hanna’s eyes, because they’re the exact same caring, deep brown eyes she remembers as the only ones that realized she existed, sometimes. Looking into them now is like seeing her adolescence reflected back at her through the only eyes that ever seemed to look at her.

And now she can’t bring herself to look at Hanna’s short, efficiently cut hair, so different from the long gorgeous curls that had captivated her as a preteen. Something about the swoop of the part and the way it barely brushes Hanna’s jawline reminds Root of her own hair growing up.

Root isn’t the type for vivid dreams or nightmares, but right now there’s a part of her that’s fervently hoping that this will all just turn out to be a strange combination of the two.

Maybe if she wills it hard enough, she can wake up on Shaw’s couch. Maybe if she just wants it badly enough, she can go back to a simpler time when the Machine wasn’t presenting her with the cold, hard fact that she and Shaw were best suited to be with other people.

But then Hanna smiles tentatively at her to fill the silence stretching across the couch, and Root isn’t sure of what she wants anymore.

For now, she’ll settle for being sure that she can’t bear to waste any more time than they already have. They’ve already lost years, and now they’re losing every second they continue to spend tiptoeing around each other in conversation as though they’re just two people seeing each other at a class reunion.

“Did—”

“So—”

They both stutter and stop, then smile sheepishly at each other.

Root hasn’t felt this clumsy or inarticulate in years. Not since she left Bishop, Texas. She finds, like so many other things being brought back to light today, that she dislikes the easy familiarity with which her past is settling over her.

“You go.”

Hanna clears her throat. “I was just going to say, so, Russell—”

“I killed him,” Root says flatly.

She can feel a slight, inexplicable smile tugging at her lips, and she’s sure it didn’t go unnoticed by Hanna.

“I heard he was killed by gangsters,” Hanna says carefully, with those relentless eyes searching Root’s face intently.

Root shrugs. “I killed him,” she repeats. “For what he did to you.”

Hanna’s face tightens at that, but there’s no sadness or regret in her expression.

“Did they ever find another girl near Bishop? Around my age, similar colouring?”

“No,” Root says, somewhat taken aback, before piecing together Hanna’s implication. “How many…?”

“Just her,” Hanna says softly. She looks as though she wants to say more, but is searching for the words.

Root gives her a moment, but then remembers: “They may have found her a few years ago. In his backyard. We all thought it was…”

Hanna shakes her head, then exhales deeply and scoots down the couch to be closer to Root. Holding out her hands, she waits.

Root stares at Hanna’s outstretched hands. She knows what Hanna’s waiting for, but it seems so wildly out of the context of their conversation that she’s not quite sure of herself. Everything right now seems wildly out of the context of everything she built her life upon.

“Sam,” Hanna says.

With a slight laugh, Root slides down the arm of the couch and brings the tips of her fingers together into each of Hanna’s palms. Gently scraping outwards repeatedly, Root remembers how Hanna used to insist that this would help pass some of Root’s typing ability onto her. She remembers how they’d sit under the trees behind the parking lot at school and talk about how one day Root would be the richest computer inventor in the world, and Hanna would be the person who reminded her that she needed to actually talk to people sometimes. The one who took care of her.

“After…” Hanna stops, and then rephrases her thought. “Sometimes I would do this to calm myself down. One hand, then the other.”

Root looks up and meets Hanna’s gaze quietly.

“I was left at the house he took her from. It wasn’t really a house. It was just somewhere her parents were staying while they tried to figure out what to do next. They weren’t… they weren’t good people,” Hanna closes her hands gently, enclosing Roots’ with her own. “But they raised me, and taught me a lot of things. I had a role in their family.”

Root drops her eyes to their hands, then back up to Hanna’s face, searching.

“What did they teach you?” she asks softly.

Hanna smiles, as though she’d known Root would ask. “A little bit of everything. Identity fraud, grifting, thieving. Some hacking, but I have a feeling you’re still twice the whiz with computers I could ever be.”

Root grins a little at that and the confirmation of what she’d begun to suspect in the past few hours anyway. From the meticulously androgynous fashion choices to the impersonal furnishings and belongings, everything had already begun adding up. “Alec Parker?”

A small laugh. “I’ve been living as him for about a year. Got comfortable, I guess.”

Root laughs as well, remembering how worn-out she’d been when the Machine used to provide her with an unending stream of roles to play. “Well, we certainly turned out to be more similar than we ever thought we would be.”

The grip on Root’s hands tightens just the slightest as Hanna’s laugh expands. “We used to be so different, and now…”

 _90.898%_ flashes through Root’s mind.

“I’d say we make quite the pair.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw’s phone rings – _again_ – so she picks it up this time and barks, “What?”

“Hey, Shaw. Just checking in.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know. Wanted to see if you wanted to… chat, maybe.”

Shaw rolls her eyes and weighs the merits of hanging up on him right now, or after he’s driven up her blood pressure by 50 points.

“Finch also wanted to know if there was anything you needed.”

“No.”

“You never told us why you dropped by earlier.”

Shaw rummages in her pockets and finds a bar of chocolate. Perfect. Biting off a generous piece, she growls, “I told you. I was making pork chops.”

There’s a pause, like Reese still has no better an idea what to say in reply to that than he did the first time she said it in the subway. Shaw snickers mentally. Whoever said the truth was overrated could kiss her ass.

“You sure it didn’t have anything to do with the set of binoculars we’re missing?”

Shaw hangs up.

Biting off another huge chunk of chocolate, Shaw turns off her phone and adjusts her cross-legged sitting position, then picks up the aforementioned binoculars and trains them back through the window.

She frowns. They’re still just holding hands and talking. They might as well have fallen asleep with their eyes open, for all the action this stakeout is seeing.

Shaw’s focus lands on the person sitting across from Root. Hanna Frey - or Alec Parker, whatever - whoever this person is, Shaw doesn’t get why Root’s got that stupid soppy look on her face. She read up on Harold’s Hanna Frey files before she left the subway. Hanna Frey didn’t seem special when she was friends with Root as a teenager and still doesn’t seem special now.

She crams the rest of the chocolate in her mouth and scowls, because now it’s gone, and now Shaw’s stuck sitting here watching Root get cuddly with probably just about the only person in the world who’s freer with physical contact than she is.

Seriously, what’s even the point of petting someone’s face like that? Open-palmed approaches to an opponent’s face are the most inefficient spread of force. A compact, direct maximization of pressure, _that’s_ the only reason someone’s hand should be getting into contact with someone else’s face. Preferably with someone being Shaw and someone else being Root.

She smiles a little, picturing the feel of it in her mind.

Then the picture morphs into her hand cupping Root’s face softly, the way Hanna’s is right now. Shaw’s grip on the binoculars tightens as she assesses the unnecessary amount of skin-to-skin contact Hanna’s open-handed method is getting.

The picture in Shaw’s head is still warring with the one on the other end of her binoculars. In her mind now it’s her wrist that Root has reached up to hold, and her hand that Root is leaning into. Not Hanna’s.

Shaw doesn’t realize she hasn’t been breathing till Root brings Hanna’s hand down from her face and starts doing that weird thing with their hands again, and a long push of air escapes her.

The sound of her own sigh startles her. She sets the binoculars down and rubs at her eyes, still trying to erase the pictures from before from being so vibrantly tangible.

“This is your fault, you know,” she announces. She knows the Machine is listening. It always is. That doesn’t stop her from feeling foolish and wanting to take her words back immediately as they leave her.

What next, is she going to get an implant and hear robot voices in her head now too?

But she started to make a point, so she’s going to finish it.

“I know what’s happening here. I’m no dummy. You think you’re getting me to admit I have feelings.”

Shaw picks at a hangnail on her thumb.

“Of course I have feelings. I know they’re there. I also know that they’re not the same for me as they are for everyone else, and I’m okay with that, which most people with Axis II personality disorder aren’t. And I know you know all these things.”

The hangnail is proving stubbornly difficult to get rid of.

“So why would you tell me that Root is pretty much the best possible option for me? 99.607%, are you kidding me? I wasn’t even looking for options. I was fine with things the way they were.”

She accidentally rips the hangnail clean off, and hastily sticks her thumb in her mouth.

“I get what you’re trying to show me. That Root is probably the only person in the world who’d be able to put up with me, and that she probably wasn’t fine with things the way they were, and that there are people in her life who are more realistic, 90-point-whatever-% matches.”

Examining her thumb again, she can see the blood welling up in the cut.

“I already knew all that,” she says quietly.

A droplet of blood runs down her finger.

Shaw just looks at it for a while, blank and unfocused.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her phone lighting up and turning itself back on.

“Oh, no,” she says warily. “You are not going to start calling me and talking to me now just because I had one conversation with you. I refuse to be your second analogue interface.”

The sound of ringing, tinny and small from her phone, causes her to freeze.

“What the—”

 _Root: Calling mobile…_ appears on her screen.

“Oh, hell no,” she yells. “Stop!”

Furiously punching at the screen, then at all the buttons she can find on the stupid thing, it’s to no avail. Her phone refuses to stop dialling.

Grabbing her binoculars, she keeps one eye on her demonic, Machine-possessed phone, and the other peering through the binoculars. What she sees through the window of the apartment across the way catches her attention, and she turns her full gaze on it.

 _You have reached the voicemail box of—_ her phone hangs up now, but she already heard it.

And she already saw Root dismiss her call.


	5. V: Shaw's flask might be broken now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story: hanna's alive, root was feeling a lot of feels from the past, reese just wants to be shaw's chat buddy, shaw had a conversation with what sounded like herself instead, and the machine got impatient.

Shaw just keeps staring at her phone, buzzing away on her coffee table. She figures she has about two more rings to figure out what to do before the decision gets made for her and the call goes to voicemail.

 _Bzzzzz_.

One more ring.

Scowling, she grabs at it. “What do you want, Root?”

“That’s what I was calling to ask.”

Shaw hesitates. What’s she supposed to say, _Oh, sorry, I was just talking about you with the Machine yesterday and then the damn thing decided to call you from my phone just to fuck with me_? Pass.

“I don’t remember,” she says, trying to sound genuine about it. She’s pretty sure she’s failing.

There’s a pause on the other end, like Root doesn’t know what to say next either.

“Was that it?” Shaw asks finally. She makes it sound like she’s a busy person who doesn’t care that this is the first time she’s talking to Root in what feels like forever.

She’s not thinking about how bored she’s been, she’s not realizing that sometimes she waits for Root to annoy her and remind her how to feel things besides hunger, and she is definitely not dwelling on the question of who Root’s been gracing with her annoying presence if it hasn’t been her.

“Actually, I do have a favour to ask of you…” Root’s voice trails upwards, just as coy as it’s ever been. Almost as though everything’s still exactly like it’s always been.

“Yeah?” Shaw’s feeling – something – it’s almost like she’s _anxious_ at what might come next?

“Can I crash on your couch tonight?”

Shaw doesn’t answer at first. She’s too confused.

“Sameen?”

“Uh,” she says. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Great. See you soon,” Root says with a smile in her voice.

Shaw sinks into her couch. The one Root’ll be sleeping on later tonight. After asking first.

She never asks first.

“What are you doing,” she mutters, before slouching further and taking a healthy swig of whiskey from her flask. She isn’t sure who she’s talking to.

 

* * *

 

 

“When are you going to get your own place?”

Root wiggles her feet – the same feet that are exiling Shaw clear to one small corner of the couch – and smiles when Shaw recoils into the arm of the couch even more. “Whenever She tells me it’s time, I suppose.”

“Right. Because that’s not a decision you can make on your own.” Shaw offers her some whiskey, taking away the sting from her waspish tone.

Root sits forward and accepts. Lingering, she holds Shaw’s gaze while taking a long pull from the flask.

She lets the flask dangle a bit when she offers it back.

Shaw eyes it, then takes it and deliberately wipes off the mark Root’s lips left on the mouth with her thumb. A small smile tugs at the edges of Shaw’s lips, and for a second, Root is struck with how familiar and _right_ everything feels in this moment.

Wordlessly, Shaw hands her the popcorn bowl she’d been keeping on the end table next to her arm of the couch, far away from Root.

Root’s gaze is careful. “Are you… sharing your popcorn, too?”

“You see anyone else I’m holding this out to around here?”

A grin splits her face, and she reaches for a generous handful, even though she hates popcorn. She pops one into her mouth happily.

“Why do you chew so obnoxiously?” Shaw complains. “I’m trying to watch this stupid documentary about online dating that _you_ added to my queue.”

Root keeps eating enthusiastically. She can’t help it. Her grin won’t let her eat the popcorn with her mouth closed.

“Sorry,” she almost laughs. “Sameen.”

Root lets Shaw’s name roll around her tongue. “Sameen,” she says again, just to feel the way it’s formed around the popcorn in her mouth.

Shaw gingerly tugs at Root’s foot in response. “Shh,” she says reproachfully. “I want to see this part.”

Wiggling her feet again, Root accedes and turns her attention back to the television. She notes, with no small amount of pleasure, that Shaw’s hand is still resting on one of her feet, and her other foot is almost resting on Shaw’s thigh at this point.

For maybe the hundredth time since they sat down together on this couch, Root can’t stop thinking about how _strange_ it is that she still feels like she knows, deep down, that she and Shaw are meant to just be like this. That they’re meant to be _more_ than this, not less.

That even though the Machine has pretty much explicitly told her that she and Shaw aren’t meant to work out, the pull she feels towards Hanna – the same pull she’s always felt, ever since she was a child – it just doesn’t feel like it compares to the punch in her gut that she felt the instant she first saw Shaw’s picture glaring up at her from the contents of a file.

Root can’t stop thinking about how wrong it must be, to be so intensely aware of the fingers lightly drumming on her toes, of the bottom lip absentmindedly being chewed, of the solid, warm leg pressing into the arch of her foot.

This isn’t how she’s supposed to be feeling. This isn’t how she’s supposed to be – moving on. This is making her as inadequate to the Machine as every single other human, compiled with bad code.

“Wow,” the man being interviewed is saying on the television. “There are… other gay people out there. A heck of a lot of them.”

Suddenly Shaw’s hand is gone, and her thigh has retreated along with the rest of her to as far away as she can get at the other end of the couch.

Without turning her head to acknowledge or give weight to whatever just happened, Root scrutinizes Shaw out of the edge of her vision.

There’s an odd, closed look about Shaw’s face now, but her focus is still trained on the man in the documentary talking about the sheer number of new people he found once he started looking. Her bottom lip is no longer being worried at, but bitten down to the point where white appears instead of red.

Then Shaw’s eyes flick over to meet hers. She holds out the flask of whiskey again, then pulls it back ever so slightly when Root comes forward to reach for it.

Root follows it and leans closer. Closer than she needs to.

“Sameen,” she says quietly, brushing ever so slightly against Shaw’s fingers as her hand closes around the flask.

A shuttered look appears and tension vibrates off of Shaw. “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t say anything.”

Root stays motionless, barely breathing, watching Sameen’s eyes growing heavy-lidded and closer.

A soft “oh” escapes her as Shaw’s lips gently press against hers, eyes still half-open, watching intently. “I, uh—”

“No,” Shaw whispers fiercely against her mouth. “We’re not talking right now.”

Root drops the flask on the coffee table – or at least she meant to, but it may have missed and fallen to the ground. She can’t tell. She doesn’t care. All she wants is another free hand to weave into Shaw’s hair, because this time – this time it’s going to be different.

This time their kiss is slow, pliant. This time Shaw’s hands are skimming up her legs instead of grabbing her by the collar. This time, Root isn’t wondering if Shaw really does want her or if she just wants to shut her up, because she knows that it’s both.

This time they’re going to take their time.

“Too far,” Shaw grumbles into her mouth as Root pulls them both up and off the couch and in the direction of Shaw’s bed.

“I thought we weren’t talking,” Root smiles, but her voice is as serious as Shaw’s ever heard it.

Shaw rests her forehead against Root’s, never breaking eye contact, breath staccato and hot. Root watches a myriad of emotions – of things Shaw probably doesn’t even know how to hold onto and name – flicker across her face.

Root pushes forward and takes Shaw’s lips again, driven by an instinct warning her not to let her thoughts or Shaw’s cloud the possibility of what’s unfolding. She pushes forward and they stagger across the room, teeth clicking and noses bumping. She pushes them until they trip onto the bed, and waits for Shaw to clamber her way on top.

She doesn’t have to wait long. In an instant, Shaw has them flipped, hands pressing Root’s wrists down as she bites at Root’s lip and pulls.

Root allows it for a second, holding Shaw’s stare, then wrenches one hand free to wrap around Shaw’s neck, pulling her down and feeling Shaw’s pulse race.

She watches Shaw’s eyes narrow, before sliding her free hand under Root’s neck to lift her head off the bed and pull their tongues as close together as possible. Her other hand lets Root’s wrist go and aimlessly wanders past her collarbone before settling heavily on her breastbone.

Root slides her hand beneath the back of Shaw’s shirt, palm hot against Shaw’s even hotter skin, running over faint scars and vertebrae. She watches Shaw’s eyes finally fall shut, then closes her own and loses herself to the growing need with which Shaw’s lips are moving on hers.

She doesn’t remember how Shaw managed to shuck them out of their clothes, only that it happened almost without her even noticing. She doesn’t remember how her thigh ended up pressed so firmly against Shaw’s core, only that the same impatience that Shaw displayed in getting her bra off was mirrored in the rhythmic, almost anxious undulations of Shaw’s hips.

Root remembers the look in Shaw’s eyes the first time she leaves a trail of bite marks winding downwards. She remembers the storminess glaring up at her when Root manages to roll them over later so she can tug at Shaw’s earlobe with her teeth.

She remembers the laugh they share when Shaw’s incoherent noises turn into her name being whispered then pulled right out of her, followed by Root’s affectionate “Shut up, we’re not supposed to be talking.”

Root remembers the startling speed with which Shaw falls asleep much later, letting their legs remain intertwined. She remembers feeling stupefied at how safe it felt to stroke gentle circles on Shaw’s cheek.

She remembers leaving quietly in the middle of the night, wondering why the thoughts in her head were so thunderously loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> attn: i WILL stick to my outline of how this fic is supposed to go!!! stop tempting me with ideas for all the better things that could happen!!!（╬ಠ益ಠ)
> 
> (but also thank you all for the comments and kudos and reading, it's all very nice! thank you!)


	6. VI: Hanna just may be a cardshark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story: root and shaw did the thing

If Shaw had stormed in and ignored even Bear, single-mindedly focused on retrieving the stale pizza Reese had ordered before they’d left for their latest number, the team pretends not to notice.

 _Good_ , Shaw thinks, ferociously tearing away at the cold, dry slice. She washes it down with some overly sweet, flat soda, and refuses to look in the direction of the nerd corner.

“That was quick thinking,” Reese comments, pulling up a chair next to her. “With the decoy act.”

She snorts, thinking of how badly she’d wanted to rip into the mark the entire time she’d been trying to sell the helpless damsel act. “Wasn’t my idea.”

She finally scowls over at the nerd corner.

Harold’s gazing over at them with a mildly concerned look on his face, but Hanna and Root are deep in conversation and looking at something on the computer.

The hand resting comfortably on Root’s upper back is getting the full brunt of Shaw’s glare. But she can feel Reese looking at her too, and so she turns her glare on him, searching for the same sympathy in his expression that she can feel radiating off of Harold, even from here.

Luckily for him, all she sees in Reese’s face is a carefully neutral expression.

“What do you want, John?”

“We were a good team today,” he says unnecessarily, after some time.

Shaw gets up and looks for Bear.

She doesn’t need Reese to congratulate her on the fact that she’s a professional. Even if she did figure the first thing she’d do once they got back to the subway bunker would be to crush Hanna’s comms in one hand, then Root’s skull in the other.

Bear trots over, still happy to see her even though she snubbed him for the pizza when she came in.

“That’s right,” she says affectionately. “You’re always here for me, aren’t you?”

His tongue lolls out of his mouth in agreement.

Shaw can hear heels clicking over, but she stays focused on giving Bear a good rubdown. She refuses to acknowledge the throat being politely cleared, and stays seated on the floor.

“Sam told me you were great at what you do, but – wow,” Hanna says.

Bear whimpers as Shaw accidentally squeezes him a bit too hard when she registers _her_ name being used to reference Root. With a baleful look at her, Bear gently shakes her off and wanders over to Harold.

Shaw’s chin juts out, mood further darkening, slowly getting to her feet. She eyes Hanna up and down, then sighs.

“You weren’t too bad yourself,” she says reluctantly. “We could use a grifter’s perspective.”

Hanna beams at her.

“And then you could be the one playing a simpering fool next time.”

The smile slips a bit.

Hanna clocks Shaw’s resentful stare at a point somewhere below Hanna’s left ear, and Root’s furrowed brow and uncomfortable shifting from side to side.

“Well, I’m looking forward to it,” Hanna says, sounding annoyingly knowing, before running her hand reassuringly down Root’s back and heading back in Harold’s direction.

Shaw’s eyes narrow as Root’s upper body turns as if to follow Hanna. She keeps transferring her weight from one foot to the other without moving, though, so Shaw folds her arms and waits.

She watches Root’s attempt at pasting a smile on her face.

“That went well, I think,” Root says, only the slightest hint of a waver in her voice.

The same way she hadn’t deigned to give Reese a verbal response when he’d said it, Shaw just lifts an eyebrow, as if to silently say, _That’s what you came here to say?_

“Sameen, I…” Root licks her lips. Shaw waits, but quickly grows impatient as Root just keeps looking at her with those large, sad eyes and deft, vulnerable mouth.

“Look, Root,” Shaw’s voice is brittle and crisp, “I don’t expect an apology. You don’t need to tiptoe around me. We’re both grown ups.”

Root looks taken aback.

“And,” Shaw adds wryly, “We already agreed not to talk about it.”

Shaw exhales. “In fact, let’s just… not talk. We work together. Let’s keep it at that. The way we always should have.”

Root’s mouth opens in dismay, but Shaw’s already walking away.

“Wait,” Root blurts, grabbing hold of Shaw’s arm, refusing to let go even as Shaw’s teeth expose a silent snarl. “Sameen, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Shaw’s not looking at her. She’s looking over at Harold, and Reese, and _Hanna_ , all doing the post-op check-in without them, and she resents being here, and having this conversation with Root, and not being as far away from all of this as she can get.

“Yeah?” she finally snaps, whirling around to face Root, careful to keep her voice low. “So spit it out.”

“I wasn’t going to apologize,” Root says, earnest as ever, eyes roving across Shaw’s hard expression, trying to read her. “I don’t… you’re right. We haven’t been talking. About anything, and we never do. But we should be, Sameen. We should—”

“About what, Root?” Shaw asks heatedly, and only slightly bitterly. She’s already inching away, towards the exit, trying to increase the distance between them. “About how the Machine told you that Hanna over there is your soulmate? About how you came to me and fucked me and ran away afterwards anyway? Or maybe we should talk about other things the Machine has said.”

Root’s hand drops from Shaw’s arm as if scalded. “I—”

“For God’s sake, Root, you don’t even have a place to live. You don’t _breathe_ unless you’re sure the Machine is okay with it. But you know what? It’s just a machine. It fucks up, too, just like the rest of us.”

Root’s shaking her head, and Shaw can tell she’s starting to push some buttons. Shaw presses on, intent on further needling at Root. She wants Root to explode. She wants to make sure Root _feels_ as ridiculous and shitty and off-balance as she does.

“You know how I know the Machine fucks up just like you and I do?” Shaw finally bursts out. She doesn’t wait for Root to reply, doesn’t let Root get in a word edgewise. “Because it told you that you and Hanna are supposed to end up together, but it told _me_ that you and I are supposed to end up together. You were my fucking so-called soulmate, okay? It spit _your_ name out at me.”

Root takes an instinctive step backwards. Her face is pale, words caught in her throat.

“The truth is, Root,” Shaw finishes, watching Root create distance between them without even thinking about it, eyes holding Root’s and refusing to let them go, “People like us, we’re not actually supposed to end up with anyone. We don’t get happily-ever-afters.”

Shaw doesn’t stick around to watch Root try to think of something to say, or try to clear the shock and dismay from her face. She leaves the subway, and Root doesn’t stop her.

 

* * *

 

 

Hanna sits down on the bench next to Root. She’s aware that Root probably doesn’t want any company, so she sits quietly for some time, swinging her legs.

Finally Root looks up at her. She looks just as lost as she did the first day Hanna had started high school, leaving Root alone every recess at middle school. The same internal conflict she felt in asking Hanna to spend time with her at the library after school, instead of trying to make new friends, is mirrored in Root's eyes today.

Root doesn’t say anything to her, and she doesn’t need to.

“You know,” Hanna says after a moment. “I think we worked really well back then for a reason.”

Root smiles a little sadly. “What’s that?”

Hanna scoots back against the back of the bench and takes Root’s hand in her own. She watches Root’s empty expression as she gazes at their intertwined hands.

“We were so wildly different.”

Root looks up at her. Hanna can see the questions teeming on Root’s face.

“We had our roles to fill, you know? I was your older best friend, the hero on a pedestal, friendly and nice. Everybody liked me.”

“Well, don’t be modest,” Root says, wrinkling her nose.

Hanna’s glad to see Root’s mood beginning to lift.

“And you…” she says, pulling Root’s hand into her lap. “You were quiet, bizarre, withdrawn, and you were in love with me.”

She feels in her hands, rather than sees, Root’s entire body stiffen.

Hanna starts talking a little more quickly. “We were both in love with each other, in our different ways. We loved each other as children so deeply, and… we still do, years and years later. Countless identities and crimes and wrongdoings later, we’ve changed, but how much we care for each other hasn’t.”

Root doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring down at her lap.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Hanna says softly, tilting Root’s face up to look at her. “We’ll always be a little bit in love with each other.”

Confusion is still swimming in Root’s eyes, and Hanna brushes at her brow gently.

“But we’re not the same people we were back then… Root.”

Hanna smiles at the hint of relief beginning to dawn on Root’s face. Giving her hand one last squeeze, and one last “bye, Sam,” just for old time’s sake, Hanna gets up and walks over to the table Reese and Harold are sitting at, having a mild conversation with each other. She picks up the pack of cards and wiggles it.

“Anyone play?”

Harold shakes his head, not disapproving but not encouraging, either, so she turns to Reese. “John?”

Reese gestures to the seat across from him. “You won’t be able to con me at cards. Just thought I’d warn you.”

Hanna smirks as she settles in. “I wouldn’t need to.”

Harold shakes his head. “Somebody really ought to keep an eye on both of you.”

“Are you offering to be our referee, Finch?”

“Cards don’t require a referee, Mr. Reese, but you certainly do. And as for Ms. Frey…”

“Oh, this is going to be such fun. Thank you, Harold.”


	7. VII: Harold's probably going to scold the Machine for meddling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> previously in this story: shaw blew up at root, root realized some Very Important characterization notes with hanna's help, reese probably lost a lot of money to hanna, and harold wanted nothing to do with any of this but he just sat over there and refereed it all anyway.

The phone rings again, more insistently this time, but Shaw stays rooted in her kitchen, determinedly whacking at unnecessarily large amounts of raw beef with one concerted swing after another, until the ringing finally stops.

At this point the meat is about as tenderized as it’s going to get, but she keeps hammering away with the meat tenderizer, fueled by a bottomless source of aggression. Several times she misses and slams into the countertop, but she ignores the loud cracks and continues doggedly.

The phone starts ringing again.

Shaw tries to convince herself that her hands are too bloody from the raw meat and that’s why she can’t answer the phone (for sanitary reasons, really), but eventually she rolls her eyes and starts washing up.

“What?” she nearly barks.

“Ms. Shaw,” comes Harold’s voice after a brief pause. “We have a new number.”

Shaw leans against a table and frowns. “Who’s we?”

Reese’s voice comes through. “The whole gang’s here, Shaw. We’re just waiting for you.”

 _Professional_ bounces around in her head for a bit as she contemplates asking for the day off. _Action_ calls out to her from inside her boring, empty apartment.

“Fine,” Shaw says reluctantly, even though “the whole gang” is lingering and distasteful at the edges of her awareness. “I’ll be over in a bit, I just need to clean up first. Gotta get rid of the blood before it dries.”

“What—”

“On second thought,” Reese jumps in, interrupting Harold. “We can probably take this one, if you’re… busy.”

She’s already getting her coat on and stashing away a few guns. “Forget it, Reese. No way you’re taking out a number without me.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to do a rushed cleanup job with all that blood you’ve got.”

“May I remind you, Ms. Shaw, that we don’t _take out_ our numbers, or anyone else, for that matter—”

“Yeah, yeah, Harold. And calm down, it’s just from meat, okay? Just some blood from some meat.”

“Sounds like someone’s been having a party,” another voice joins in, lightly suggestive.

Shaw can feel her jaw clenching and tension rising. So clearly she is definitely not done with the meat pulverizer yet.

“We wouldn’t want to separate you from your meat, Sam,” Root continues.

Shaw elects not to respond to her directly, mostly because she doesn’t quite know how – even more than usual – and grits out, “Look, if you guys didn’t want me to come in, why did you bother calling?”

“You’re certainly welcome to join us, Ms. Shaw,” Harold says quickly.

She might be imagining it, but she swears she can hear Hanna’s laugh in the background of the call. Shaw can identify anger swelling up, and hints of confusion at Root’s shamelessly unchanged behaviour, which only serves to further intensify the anger building within her, so she pinches at the bridge of her nose until her eyes squint shut.

 _Screw professionalism_ , she decides. This team never really had much of that to begin with, despite her best efforts. Or Harold’s best efforts, anyway.

“Whatever,” she says finally. “Call me if the Dream Team doesn’t pan out.”

She disconnects the call before Root gets a chance to chime in again. She is absolutely not in the mood for engaging in quick comebacks and witty repartee, as if nothing had ever happened. As if nothing had changed.

She is also not in the mood for thinking about how ridiculous it is that _she_ ’s the one who isn’t at work pretending everything’s okay right now. And she is _especially_ not in the mood for spending even one more second wallowing or trying to identify all the unfamiliarly unpleasant emotions swirling inside her.

What she is in the mood for is meat. Seared, grilled, stewed, roasted, or skewered. She is going to cook all the meat, and then eat every last bite.

 

* * *

 

 

Root’s hand has been poised to knock on the door for a solid eight seconds now, which is eight seconds longer than she’s ever waited outside Shaw’s apartment before just letting herself in.

_# Schlage single cylinder deadbolt. BiLock jimmy proof deadlock deadbolt. Abloy complete rim latch lock._

“Oh,” Root breathes under her breath, amused and relieved at the same time. “Hello again.”

# _36 viable entry strategies._

“I’m glad you’re back, but I’ll talk to you… later. And I think I’m going to go with the traditional entry strategy, if you don’t mind.”

She pauses, noting the extra deadbolt Shaw has added to her door since she’d last been here.

“Well, the _other_ traditional entry strategy.”

She knocks four times, sharply and with a confidence she doesn’t quite feel.

A minute passes, during which Root has alternated between: casually leaning against the doorjamb ( _trying too hard to be suave,_ she thinks), bearing her weight on one leg with her arms crossed ( _possibly interpreted as confrontational,_ she realizes), and standing upright with her hands stuffed into her jacket ( _the most truly nonchalant posture_ , she decides).

She can smell food wafting out into the hallway even past Shaw’s thrice-locked door, so she knocks again.

“Sameen?” she calls. “Shaw.”

The door swings open, and Root looks down at the radiantly angry, glowingly astonished look on Shaw’s face.

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?”

Root shrugs one shoulder and shuffles her feet nervously, before she can catch it, and clears her throat. “Can I come in?”

Shaw’s posture is hostile, and her arms are crossed. “What are you doing here?”

Root can’t meet Shaw’s eyes, but she knows they’re blazing and hard; instead, Root looks at the tightness of the skin pulled across Shaw’s knuckles, and the angry, stressed vein rising from her neck, and the stony slant of her lips set in a frown.

In a second Root’s mouth dries, taken aback at how keenly she’s trying to observe every single detail, every single feature. Her eyes trace along Shaw’s face, from the firm, set jawline, to the steadily reddening, high cheekbones, until finally Root meets Shaw’s gaze, searching for something – she’s not sure what, but she feels like she’ll know it when she sees it – and finds herself trapped. Locked into a silent stare where neither of them seem to be breathing.

The look on Shaw’s face is softer somehow. It’s still cold and upset, but slightly less inflexible, and that’s all it takes for Root to almost lunge forward as she swoops down and pulls Shaw’s face towards her with both hands.

She’s cupping Shaw’s face with intent, heart almost stopping when Shaw’s lips loosen and yield before kissing her back with nearly as much purpose for one magnificent second.

And then before she knows it, she’s back up against one of Shaw’s doors again with a hand at her throat, pressing against her windpipe, storminess in Shaw’s eyes as she tips upwards and growls in her face.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

But Root’s still one step behind, still swathed in the moment of the kiss, still caught up in the feeling of Shaw’s brief reciprocation.

“I’m here to see you,” she says simply.

They stay like that for a few fast heartbeats, before Shaw’s grip slackens and drops from Root’s throat. A million things seem to want to burst out of Shaw’s mouth at once, but she doesn’t say anything as she pulls Root inside and locks the door behind her.

With a familiarly crooked half-grin, Shaw gestures between them. “What are we doing here, Root? I’ve said what I needed to say.”

Root steps forward, pinning Shaw against her own door. She wrinkles her nose and smiles as she looks down, enjoying the flash of warmth that briefly crosses Shaw’s face when their close proximity brings Root standing between Shaw’s legs.

“I could say we were never all that great at talking,” Root says pleasantly. “But you didn’t give me a chance to say what I needed to say, sweetie.”

The hesitancy keeping Shaw’s posture rigid is what stops Root from running her hands up along Shaw’s sides and under her shirt, even though her hands are positively itching. So instead Root drops her head down and brings her nose side by side alongside Shaw’s, their mouths bare centimeters away.

“Do you remember that brief lesson I tried to give you on control systems once?”

“Root,” Shaw says, a hint of a warning in her voice even as her eyelashes shiver.

“Systems, they’re all so input-dependent. You can have an ideal system, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have the right input.”

Her lips land softly just under Shaw’s jaw, and Shaw’s neck arches involuntarily in response.

“The system could be perfect, but if you don’t take into account user error…”

“Root,” Shaw repeats, a little louder. Root can feel the thrumming of irritation, pressed up against her lips. “Get to the point, or get out.”

Root’s hands slide into Shaw’s hair just as Shaw runs her fingers gently over the curves in Root’s lower back, keeping them tethered together despite her ill-tempered words.

“What I’m saying is I made a mistake,” Root finally says, exhaling lightly into the side of Shaw’s face.

“A few mistakes,” Shaw interjects.

Root laughs into Shaw’s hair. “Yes.”

All she wants to do is slide her hands up between Shaw’s back and the door and pull them as close together as possible, but as it is she’s not sure when Shaw will decide that what they’re doing is getting suspiciously close to a hug.

“My first mistake was in typing Samantha Groves’ social security number.”

Shaw breathes out slowly, thinking, as Root draws back to watch her.

Suddenly rolling her eyes in exasperation and shaking her head, Shaw is torn between laughing at the absurdity or killing Root right now for putting them through all this pointless turmoil.

“My second mistake,” Root says playfully, clearly happy with Shaw’s reaction, “I guess it was that I really, _really_ tried hard not to feel how I feel about you.”

Shaw’s scowl brings an uneven smirk to Root’s face as she coyly adds, “And I even thought it worked for a little while there.”

Root drops a light peck on her forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles of annoyance. Seeing Shaw’s mouth open for a biting retort, she drags one finger across Shaw’s lips.

“Ah-ah,” she smiles. “It’s still my turn.”

Root’s other hand gradually winds down Shaw’s arm, toying with her wrist and drawing lines in her palm, encouraged by the way Shaw’s hand opens outward for her. Her smiles slowly fades, and she hesitates.

Root interlocks their fingers together, faintly running her thumb in small, distracted patterns. She wets her lips, trying not to notice the way Shaw’s gaze is hungrily observing the movements of her mouth.

“You were right,” she says, serious now, lifting her finger off Shaw’s lips to tuck some hair behind her ear, “I’m… the Machine and I, we – I need to—”

“Root,” Shaw says, just as serious. “Pay attention to this, alright?”

With the barest hint of a nod, Root’s wide eyes dart between Shaw’s, and she waits.

“Shut the hell up,” Shaw breathes, before flipping them around and pinning Root against the door with her mouth.

Root grabs at Shaw’s hand, determinedly making its way up the front of her shirt, and laughs against Shaw’s mouth. She breaks away for a second and quips, “I take it we won’t be doing much more talking?”

“I said, shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haHA take that inner psyche telling me i could never finish a fic. i showed you!


End file.
